Resolute Theresa May has been a revelation in the face of Russia crisis says LEO McKINSTRY
THE mettle of a national leader is revealed in a crisis. Margaret Thatcher was made by the Falklands. Anthony Eden was broken by Suez. So far, Theresa May’s handling of the Salisbury chemical attack has been the most impressive episode of her premiership.
Derided by her opponents as weak and indecisive, the Prime Minister has proved to be resolute under fire.
In her rhetoric and her actions, she has struck exactly the right tone of determination and firmness. All the evidence indicates that the attempted murder of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia was the work of Vladimir Putin’s regime or its rogue supporters.
According to several chemical warfare experts only Russia has manufactured the nerve agent Novichok, which was used in the crime, and no other country has the expertise to deploy it. In the face of this act of foreign aggression, May’s response has been measured, strong and proportionate.
There has been no panic, just escalating toughness. More than a score of Russia diplomats have been expelled from Britain. International alliances have been built and sanctions have been imposed.
Preparing to be chairman of the National Security Council tomorrow, the Prime Minister has drawn up plans to close a Russian trade outpost in London and target the finances of Putin's cronies in the capital.
During the Conservative spring conference at the weekend, she declared with genuine anger: “We will never tolerate a threat to the life of British citizens and others on British soil from the Russian government.”
May has shown a sure touch partly because this crisis plays to her strengths: her patriotic resilience, her moral authority and her calm patience.
Moreover, having been one of the longest-serving Home Secretaries in history, she has a far greater understanding of security and espionage than anyone else in British politics. Indeed, she has been all too prescient about the Russian threat.
In a speech last November she warned that Moscow's behaviour is “threatening the international order on which we all depend”.
Most of the public approve of her approach. One recent poll found that 53 per cent of voters think she has “responded well” to the Salisbury attack while just 18 per cent support the far more pusillanimous stance of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose conduct has exposed yet again both his unfitness for the premiership and his ideological instinct to side with the enemies of the West.
May’s adroitness may also be sparking a recovery in Tory fortunes after months of bleak unpopularity. A survey at the weekend put the Conservatives three points ahead of Labour, while her party even gained a council seat in the Labour-dominated North-East at a by-election last Thursday.
The revival in May’s standing has even led to whispers at Westminster that perhaps she might lead the Conservatives into the next general election, due to be held by 2022. Such a prospect would have looked utterly fanciful only a few weeks ago when she was still grappling with the aftermath of her disastrous 2017 campaign.
Her Cabinet appeared to be in mutiny, her MPs in rebellion. “Hopeless” was the verdict of one backbencher on her leadership. Yet today the atmosphere is very different. May is not only growing into the job but is also more at ease with herself.
The change is graphically symbolised by the contrast between her experience at Grenfell Tower last summer where her appearance was greeted by almost riotous hostility, and her visit to Salisbury last Thursday when she was cheered by a large crowd and even fist-bumped by an excited young woman.
Gone is the nervous, wooden performer of last year’s election catastrophe, when she was nicknamed the “Maybot” for her lack of connection with the public. The warmer side of May now can be glimpsed, sometimes in surprising ways.
Recently, at an official press dinner, she entertained journalists with a string of jokes, including a risqué account of how, while canvassing on the campaign trail, she came across a couple enjoying a moment of unclothed intimacy in their caravan.
“It wasn't a good time to ask them if they were going to vote Conservative,” she said, adding, “I’m used to hearing moans on the doorstep but this was something else.”
May’s recovery is not down solely to Russia and her more assertive personality. She has also been helped by the steady progress she has made on Brexit, fuelled by her mastery of detail and her willingness to be pragmatic.
It is a remarkable, little credited achievement of hers to have kept the Cabinet unified through all the negotiations, in defiance of all the Remoaner predictions of Tory meltdown.
Another factor has been the strength of the British economy, with manufacturing orders at record levels, unemployment at its lowest since the 1970s, and the public finances moving into surplus for the first time since the crash of 2008.
It is Jeremy Corbyn who is now the leader in real trouble. To the outrage of many Labour MPs, the man who once supported violent Irish Republicanism now equivocates about a foreign attack on British turf. The longer this anti-British revolutionary remains in charge of Labour the brighter are May’s prospects.
With Corbyn as the alternative prime minister, May could still pull off one of the greatest political comebacks of all time.